The Met Office has issued a weather warning for strong winds today.

Storm Freya is expected to hit the UK this afternoon (Sunday, March 3), potentially bringing travel disruption and dangerous conditions from late Sunday into Monday morning.

While a large part of East Anglia, including Norwich and the surrounding area, escapes the yellow weather warning, places such as Hunstanton and Wisbech are included in the alert.

The Met Office has warned the public in affected areas to expect “injuries and danger to life from flying debris”, as well as some damage to buildings and trees, such as tiles blown from roofs and fallen branches.

The storm could also cause power cuts with the potential to affect other services such as mobile phone coverage.

The alert also warns about injuries and danger to life that could come from large waves and beach material being thrown onto sea fronts and coastal roads.

Gusts between 55mph and 65mph can be expected, with wind speeds reaching up to 80mph in coastal areas.

The warning came as forecasters provisionally announced that last month set a new temperature record, with average maximum daily peaks of 10C.

This beat the previous record of 9.8C, set in 1998.

Despite the start of the month seeing snow and freezing temperatures, the Met Office also said that the average mean temperature for February was 6.0C - the second warmest on record.

Clear skies and colder nights prevented the total average from being beaten, but the mean minimum daily temperature was still “well above average”, according to the forecaster.

With the high temperatures came plenty of sunshine, and last month has provisionally been named the second sunniest February on record for the whole of the UK.

But storm Freya’s arrival will bring a much less spring-like start to March.

Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: “What we have got is a storm developing quite rapidly to the south and west of the UK.

“It will be developing as it goes across the UK and it will be bringing very strong winds.”

He added that gusts of 55mph to 65mph are “likely quite widely within the warning area and there is the potential for isolated gusts to reach 70 and 80mph”.

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